


Cadenza

by asuralucier



Category: Palo Santo - Years & Years (Music Video)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Worship, Collars, Dubious Consent, Human/Android Relationship, Kind of Creepy All Around, Not Exactly Consensual Power Imbalance, Other, Trust Kink, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24302275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: “Do you like men? Women? Or both?”The Showman learns the difference and then some.
Relationships: Olly Alexander/The Showman (Palo Santo)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12
Collections: Turing Fest 2020





	Cadenza

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerdeluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdeluce/gifts).



> Wishing you a very happy Turing Fest!

Outside, the unblinking lights of Palo Santo stare up at him, both alive and then not at all. 

The Showman, Version Ten is good at standing still, blending into the backdrop of the near empty room. He’s good at staying quiet too. It’s almost like a game, Olly thinks, although it’s not like these androids play around. 

See who blinks first. 

“Do you like men? Women? Or both?” 

It occurs to Olly too late, that this might not have been the best question to start with. But everything about this room, with its pristine, precise corners and high glass windows has a way of getting to him. A strange nothingness worming through his hands and feet. Olly feels weirdly compelled to speak, if not, there’s a good chance he might disappear in this strange world made of glass. Not that everything...is that. 

Fear is a patient thing; it knows its time will come, sooner or later. 

At first, the Showman doesn’t react. He appears to be thinking the question over, unfeeling. He stands even more still than before. And then he opens his mouth, shows Olly his very human teeth before a not-so-human screech tears from his throat. Olly’s already heard the sound once before, so while it’s familiar enough (not a sound that Olly will soon forget), there’s no way he can prepare for it, the way it scrapes across the Showman’s wired throat even though human enough skin covers his neck. 

“It’s all the same to me.” 

It’s not the Showman’s voice. Olly realizes this with a jolt, a jerky motion that seems to put him out of his own body.

The Showman is back to being still again. 

“Who was that?” Olly asks, not trusting himself to speak any louder than a whisper. He tries to tell himself that being conscious of how loud he talks will make a difference. He tries even harder to believe it. 

“She is my mother,” says the Showman. The cadence of his voice is oddly stilted, like he is still getting used to a language. There is no emotion behind it, but this doesn’t at all take away from the utter care he has taken to pronounce every word: She. Is. My. Mother. 

“Is she watching us right now?” 

A flicker of something passes through the Showman’s face, too quick for Olly to catch exactly what. He opens his mouth, closes it again, but not before Olly musters up the courage to brush his thumb lightly against the Showman’s bottom lip. He tugs at the soft flesh for only a moment, then lets go.

The Showman’s eyes flutter shut, and he exhales, as if he’s replaying the way Olly has touched him, breaking down the contact bit by bit, like it will help him find meaning. “No, not right now.” 

“Is anyone watching us right now?” 

Olly doesn’t know much about the city of Palo Santo. He’s heard a great many stories made up by the other humans in the wild ruins. Most of the time, these stories are wishful thinking. In the ruins, color’s only something people dream about, remember in faint, faraway memory. The colors of the city don’t come with eyes, but Olly feels them everywhere at once, prickling at the back of his skull. 

“No,” said the Showman. “Not right now. No one gets to see how perfect you are, except for me. You will have to perform, but now only for me. For me to look at. That is not performance. You can be yourself, Olly Alexander.” 

Struck by an absurd kind of boldness, Olly laughs. Then he stops himself short. He reaches out instead to clasp the Showman’s shoulder, as if to reassure him. But that too, is absurd. 

The Showman is looking at him now. He asks, “What is so funny?” 

“If you have to tell me to be myself,” Olly says, “then I’m really not that at all. It’s kind of hard to explain.” 

“Then let’s try something easier.” The Showman seems amenable enough to changing the subject, and he turns his neck, the motion too quick to be entirely human, and then he bends at an impossible angle to press his nose against the dip of Olly’s knuckles. 

Olly waits, certain that the Showman might crack his neck from such a stunt, but no, that doesn’t happen either. He says, with barely enough air in his lungs, “Okay. Like what?”

Olly feels the Showman breathe against his skin, as if trying to inhale deeper, breathing in much more than just Olly’s smell from his skin. And then, just as suddenly, the Showman seems to give up on the venture and brushes Olly’s hand off his shoulder. 

“Like—what you look like under your clothes. What do you look like under your clothes?” 

Olly freezes in mid step, just as he’s about to step back out of the Showman’s reach. 

Underneath his clothes, Olly feels inordinately naked. The more he thinks about the Showman’s steady gaze scanning every inch of his body and cutting him down to size, down to the last protein or pixel, the more Olly feels himself shrinking away from the Showman. But then, Olly steels himself and stands up straight. Whether he’s smaller than the Showman is something that’s of little consequence. 

“Same as you, I’d imagine. Not like a woman. There’s a lot of difference,” Olly says. 

He’s learned about the Showman during their short time together. Olly doesn’t know if this is true for the other androids living here in Paolo Santo, but the Showman asks him strange questions because he is curious and wanting. Olly knows this, but it doesn’t necessarily make him feel better.

Olly wonders too, whether the Showman or any of his friends have ever taken a peek at themselves, and wonder how close they’d come to the real thing. 

The Showman says, “Take off your clothes.” 

Olly does, mostly petrified at the idea of saying no. He’s glad, at least, that the Showman gives him a wide berth while he shrugs off his shirt, letting the loose fabric fall from his shoulders before pulling the shirt completely over his head, and letting it fall to the floor. 

The Showman takes one step forward, and then another, with nothing but caution sticking to the soles of his feet. He raises a hand, like he’s ready to strike Olly on the side of his head with his palm. Olly can’t help but wince when the hit connects, but after a moment, he realizes it’s mostly from the anticipation of the blow. The Showman's touch is not a gentle one, but it's not one that hurts, either.

Olly forces himself to hold still, as the Showman continues his examination, dragging his fingers over the skin that covers his sternum, and then following the line of the hollow of his chest. Olly can’t help but let out a little sound as the Showman presses a thumb against his nipples. The sound appears to have surprised the Showman; he jerks back, as if Olly’s skin has burned him. 

“This is one difference?” The Showman asks, now reaching to spread his fingers over the neat bumps of Olly's ribs. 

Olly breathes out. “Or something like it, yes.” 

The Showman doesn’t ask for permission as he resumes his examination of Olly’s body. He’s more sure of himself now, the way that he lets his hands slide over Olly’s skin, cupping him around the ribs and then the sharp narrowness of his hips. Then he runs his fingers over the soft elastic of Olly’s trousers, hand coming to rest just a hair under his belly button. He says, “Take this off too.” 

Olly says, “No.” He doesn’t mean to, even though he means it as he speaks. 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t trust you.” Olly doesn’t mean for it to come out so straightforwardly, either, but out it comes, and the sentiment hangs dangerously in the inch of air that’s barely between them. “I do that, and you might hurt me.” There’s lying, of course, but what good would that do, really? Olly doesn’t think he’s lost anything by telling the truth. 

A flicker of something passes in the Showman’s face, something almost akin to regret. He drops his hand to his side and returns to his earlier stillness, thinking. 

“I would like you to trust me,” said the Showman. “No one is watching you now. It is as I have said.” 

Then Olly remembers. He’d stood still as the Showman removed the cold, cool metal collar around his neck, as if to signal that they were alone. More importantly, Olly knows exactly where the collar is when it isn’t around his neck.

Somehow, Olly manages to unroot himself from where he’d been standing and turns away from the Showman. The Showman seems content enough to wait for him to return. 

That too, is trust. 

Olly fetches the collar from its place in the bottommost bedside drawer, and holds it in his hands, as if it might burn him. He’s worn it enough times by now (which is to say, twice) to be used to the collar looking heavier than it feels. Olly returns with it to the main room, where the Showman is still standing. 

“You’d never be caught dead with this on, if we were being watched,” Olly says, holding the collar out towards him.

“I do not know what you mean.” The Showman looks at the collar, and then back at Olly again. 

Of course. Androids have little to fear from death, which is entirely human; if they must end, their ends are not so much like death. “If you wear this, then I’ll take off my pants. That way, we can both trust that we’re not being watched. We’re in this together, you and me.” 

The Showman nods, barely a perceptible inch and steps towards Olly, bowing his head. With slightly trembling fingers, Olly reaches to put the collar around the Showman’s neck and clicks the mechanism into place. The Showman seems to roll his neck around the best he can, to get a feel for his fresh restraint. Then he looks up at Olly once more, his gaze nearly guileless. “Together?”

“Yes,” Olly says, words sticking everywhere, but mostly the roof of his mouth, the syllables thick as syrup. “We have a saying. Like for like.”

“Like for like,” echoes the Showman, and a bit of a smile plays at the edge of his lips, uncertain.

“Like for like.” Olly nods. He steps away from the Showman then, and tries to ignore the trembling still in his fingers. The collar isn’t made to fit someone like the Showman, and the fit must be a bit too snug to be comfortable. But he doubts that the Showman notices. 

Very slowly, Olly lets his hands steady as they fall to his thighs, cupping lean muscle in his palm. He can’t help but think of this as a performance of a lifetime, though they are alone. He’s barely breathing, as he tugs down his pants. The Showman, with his throat obscured by his collar, seems to have stopped breathing, too. 

Standing there naked in an empty room, Olly is newly aware of his cock, how fragile it is, how perhaps one infelicitous touch of the Showman’s inhuman fingers, cogs that don't know their own strength, might change everything. He’s eager to anticipate this, so in a burst of courage, Olly takes the Showman’s hand in his own. The roughness of his palms are human-like, and Olly can’t remember if they’ve always been like that. 

Olly guides the Showman’s hand slowly over his abdomen, uncurling his fingers one by one until they’re all flat against taut muscle. The Showman's palm is warm, its unexpected heat uncurling a knot of nervousness near Olly's belly.

“Another difference,” says Olly. 

The Showman says nothing to this. Instead, he seems to be thinking it over, committing the fact to memory. The Showman doesn’t fight him as Olly again lifts his hand, guiding it down, forming it into a loose grip around his cock. Despite the adrenaline that’s shooting up his nerves, Olly is able to let himself enjoy the touch, the attractive nearness of a thing—a man, more or less, who wants. 

“...How does this make you feel?” 

“I don’t know,” says the Showman, although he seems to understand what Olly wants from him as he slides his hand from out under Olly’s, eager to be on his own. Olly is again prepared for discomfort—a too rough grip, a sudden tightness, anything more intent on satiating curiosity than giving pleasure.

But the Showman is exceedingly gentle with him, as he strokes Olly from the base of his cock to the tip, and then again. He appears to be more interested in Olly’s flushed face than the little details they’ve come to call difference. Something has alighted in the Showman's face as he strains towards real human desire.

“You’ll have to think about it,” Olly says, arching forward, “let yourself feel. You see? In your own words, don't you think now's the perfect time?”


End file.
